Islam and Science

At a time when the science of Astronomy was still primitive, the expansion of the universe was described in Quran:
“And it is We who have built the Universe with [Our creative] power and keep expanding it.” (Quran 51:47)
The fact that the universe is expanding was discovered in the last century. The physicist Stephen Hawking in his book ‘A Brief History of Time’ writes, “The discovery that the universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the 20th century.”.
The Quran mentioned the expansion of the universe even before the invention of the telescope!

“It is not for the sun to catch up with the moon, nor does the night surpass the day; and each one of them floats in its orbit.” (Qur’an, 36:40)
“It is He Who created The Night and the Day, And the sun and the moon: All (the celestial bodies) Swim along, each in its Rounded course.” (Qur’an 21:33)
Humans thought that the Sun was stationary and did not rotate about its own axis like the Earth does, but later discovered the Sun actually rotates on its own axis.
It is noticed that the sun has spots which complete a circular motion once every 25 days so the sun takes approximately 25 days to rotate around its own axis.
The Moon also rotates around its axis in the same duration that it takes to revolve around the Earth. It takes approximately 29.5 days to complete one rotation.